Glass casket.



E. H} WEST.

' GLASS CASKET.

APPLICATION FILED FEB. 21.1911.

1,256,409. Patented Feb. 12,1918.

INVENTOR WITNESSES I/VZES/ W ATTORNEY ERNEST H. WEST, OF JACKSONVILLE, ALABAMA.

GLASS CASKET.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Feb. 12, 1918.

Application filed February 27, 1917. Serial No. 151,269.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, ERNEST H. Wns'r, a citizen of the United States, residing at Jacksonville, in the county of Calhoun and State of Alabama, have invented new and useful Improvements in Glass Caskets, of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to undertaking, more especially to eoflins of plastic material; and the object of the same is to produce a casket or coflin or the like having a peculiar form of connection between its cover and its body so that these parts are very rigidly and hermetically sealed.

Another object i to provide the casket with glass handles or handholds on its body and its cover.

Another object is to provide the body with plugs of rubber or similar cushioning material at points to rest on the floor or the usual supports employed in funerals, without permitting the glass to come in contact therewith.

Other objects will appear in the following specification and claims, reference being had to the drawings wherein:-

Figure 1 is a perspective view of this casket complete,

Fig. 2 is a cross section thereof, and

Fig. 3 an enlarged cross section showing the form of connection between the cover and body which is employed in Figs. 1 and 2.

Fig. 4 is an enlarged sectional detail of a slightly different form of connection employing an upstanding bolt or screw.

This casket or coflin comprises a body 1 and a cover described below, and special connections between their meeting edges. The body is made up of a bottom and end and side walls, and at intervals along the latter are formed integral external upright webs or ribs 2 provided with alined eyes 3 through which is passed a glass bar 4 constituting a handle. The bar may be solid or it might be tubular, and it preferably has ornamental knobs 5 at its extremities. All walls preferably flare upward from the bottom, and provision may be made internally for suitable trimmings as desired,

although these are not shown as they form no part of the present invention. The body will be made in sizes adapted for adult or youthful corpses, emaciated or otherwise; and of course the cover will be made to fit. The cover 10 is herein shown as substantially flat on its top with a panel 11 of clear and transparent glass through which the face of the corpse may be viewed. Excepting for this panel, the glass employed throughout the structure may be of a rather cheap grade and is preferably non-transparentmade so by some process not necessary to bring out herein. Along its sides and across its ends the cover has outstanding flanges 12 overlying similar flanges 13 around the mouth of the body, and the flanges 12 are depressed somewhat from the plane of the top of the cover as seen in Fig. 2. At suitable points said cover ma be provided with handholds 1-1, integral t erewith and constituting handles for lifting off the cover or for handling it when it is put in place. The design features of both the body and the cover are immaterial to the present invention.

The connection between the flanges of the cover and body is generally a dual one, consisting of a seal for closing the cover hermetically upon the body, and clamping means for holding the flanges upon each other while the seal is setting; and the draw ings show various types of this connection. In Figs. 1, 2 and 3, the lower flange 13 is provided with a channel 15 whose walls onverge downwardly and are provided each with a plurality of grooves 16 best seen in Fig. 4. The flange 12 on the cover carries a correspondingly shaped tongue 17, not quite so long as the depth of the channel or groove, and its walls are also provided with grooves so located as to stand opposite the other grooves when the tongue fits the channel. Before the parts are assembled a suitable liquid cement 18 is either poured into the channel or pressed into the grooves while yet plastic, and when now the tongue is brought down into the channel and held there by any clamping means yet to be described, the cement will set and firmly connect the parts hermetically. Outside the tongue and channel in Fig. 3 the lower flange 13 meets the lower face of the upper flange 12 on a line opposite that where the faces meet inside the channel, but in this particular type of my invention the cover flange 12 has a peripheral or marginal flange In-Fig. tsubstantially the same tongue and channel are shown, but some additional cement is shown at 18' in the bottom of the channel. Outside of these inter-engaging elements the meeting faces of the flanges 12 and 13 are here provided with interengaging corrugations 21 'forming a plurality of ribs and grooves, andthe Space between them may be filled with asbestos as indicated at 22 here and in other views: While I say asbestos, I do. not wish to be limited strictly thereto because any equivalent packing may be employed; but I do prefer that this packing shall be used only in constructions where there is elsewhere a perfectly tight seal between the parts. The packing fill the space'between otherwlse rather wide meetin faces which might not stand in strict para lelism when the tongue is ressed deep into the channel, and as glass will not ield it is desirable that there be some in or er that neither part may break.;

In all forms of my invention it is desirable to clamp the members of the casket together very tightly, and to hold them so while the seal is setting, but I would not have it understood that any particular type of clamp is necessary with an particular type of seal, other than as them respective constructions are adaptedto each other. The section in Fig. 2 is not taken through the clamping means, but it is understood that the clamping means are always present.

They embody screws or bolts and suitable nuts, and by preference I make both these parts of glass. In all cases I prefer that the clamping or fastening means shall pass through the flanges of the body and the cover intermediate their interengaging elements-rather than directly through any tongue or groove or recess-my reason being that at such intermediate point the flanges are stronger and the clamping devices may be set up tight without danger of breakin and moreover, the setting up or final tig tening of the clamping means does not then in any way interrupt the contact of the interengaging faces or the setting of the seals.

Fig. 3 shows an ordinary screw 70 passing ac ing which will compress slightly through a hole in the cover flange 12 and its threaded end engaged with a threaded socket 71 in the body flange 13. The head of the screw may have any suitable configuration, but as seen in Figs. 1 and 2 I preferably make it ornamental. Fig. 4 shows a similar screw 76 projecting up from the lower flange through a hole in the upper flange and receiving a nut on its upper end.

In closing a casket of this kind, the corpse is first laid out beforethe cover is put in place, then liquid cement put into the channels or grooves, then the cover applied and pressed home so that each tongue enters its respective channel, and finally the clamping means applied and set up tight and permitted to remain so while the cement sets in place. If packing is employed, it is laid on the lower flange before the cover is put on, and the tightening up of the clamping means compresses the packing slightly.

In Fig. 2 I have shown rubber plugs 82 seated in the bottom of the body where said .body makes its angular juncture with the side walls, and these plugs project slightly beneath the body so as to'take the weight of the casket and the corpse ofl the glass. I

prefer rubber for the other material.

In Fig. 3 I have shown a glass pane 83 closing the mouth of the body before the cover is put on. The edge of this pane overlies a shoulder 84 around said mouth, beyond which is a groove 85 for the reception of cement 86, and in order to hold the pane very firmlywhen the cement sets, its extreme edge 87 is preferably beveled outward so that its lower corner projects beyond the shoulder 84 andpartly overlies the groove 85.

vWhat is claimed as new is 1. In a glass casket, the combination with the body having around its upper end a flange provided with a channel with converging side walls and longitudinal grooves in the walls, said flange also having a recess along one corner; of a cover having around it a flange provided with a depending tongue whose walls converge to fit those of the channel and have longitudinal grooves, a plastic seal within said grooves, the cover flange also having a marginal depending flange filling the recess when the tongue fits the channeL-and screw devices located between said channel and recess for drawing the plugs, but may use flanges toward each other and the tongue body having around-its open upper end an outturned flange provlded with a-continuous channel whose walls converge downwardly and are formed with longitudinal grooves, a cover having around its edgean outturned flange provided with a depending tongue of a shape to make a ground joint with both walls of said channel and also provided with longitudinal grooves adapted to register with those therein, cement in the registering grooves, and clamping means wholly outside said channel and tongue for drawing 10 the flanges toward each other and the walls of the channel and tongue into close contact with each other.

In testimony whereof I affix my signature.

ERNEST H. WEST. 

